WPR15LA267 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) while standing
From Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM) to Boulder Municipal Airport (BDU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA267
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N3416T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM), Thermal, CATo Boulder Municipal Airport (BDU), Boulder, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1967)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after flying several legs of a cross-country flight, he landed the airplane to purchase fuel. After shutting down the engine and then topping off the wing tanks with fuel, the pilot attempted to start the engine; however, it would not turn over. He pumped the primer and then continued to crank the starter. He then observed a fire in the muffler area and continued to crank the starter in an attempt to suck the fire through the muffler. The engine never started, and the propeller did not turn. A postaccident examination revealed no catastrophic failures with the engine. However, white discoloration and excessive heat damage to the lower right firewall were found, indicating that the fire likely originated in this area. The fire was likely due to the pilot overpriming the induction system, which would have filled the carburetor air box with fuel and resulted in a fire starting in the lower firewall area.
Probable cause
A fire in the engine compartment due to the pilot overpriming the hot engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA267
- Event ID
- 20150925X30936
- Case number
- WPR15LA267
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e309ff4e81de4cc8108f252ab37b2146d9c048ced94d600937240f99c611fd95; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:49:24.742Z.